7. Interview with Ian Rose
Rose was still in the shower when the buzzer rang and had to get out wet and in a towel to open the door for Pro Bono, who had arrived earlier than agreed upon at the studio on St. Mark’s. “Maybe ‘agreed upon’ is not the right term,” Rose tells me. They had not actually agreed to anything yet. Rose had been asleep when he answered the phone at about four or five in the morning and heard Pro Bono give an order through the fog of his sleep. “That’s his style, giving orders. I hadn’t agreed to anything,” Rose clarifies. Pro Bono had told him to get ready because they had to leave in an hour. “Anyway, I got up,” Rose tells me, “I guess to see what would happen. Soon I was opening the door for him, with a towel wrapped around my waist, and he, of course, was looking like a million bucks.”
Even at that early hour, Pro Bono was more gussied up than on the previous day: his shirt impeccable, white and crispy; a heavy Hermès silk tie; a dark flannel, custom-tailored suit with chalk pinstripes; a touch of classic and clean Equipage cologne; Cartier Panthere watch, wedding band on his left ring finger, and a ring with the family shield on the pinkie of the same hand. A bit too fancy for Rose’s taste. In that, just that, it was clear that the hump had made a dent in Pro Bono’s personality, which was otherwise overwhelming. It was as if he had to use everything in his exclusive closet and barricade himself behind big brands to make up for his deformity.
Rose let Pro Bono in, offered him tea and, like the day before, immediately felt intimidated by the man. Pro Bono was overbearing, at once irritable and paternal, or patronizing — Rose wasn’t sure what to call it. In any case, it was a combination Rose did not like to deal with.
“It’s about María Paz,” Pro Bono told Rose, ignoring Rose’s greeting and glaring at him with yellow-hazel eyes.
“I figured,” Rose said.
“It’s serious.”
“How serious?”
“Serious.”
“Did something happen last night?”
“It’s been happening for a while, but just I found out about it last night.”
“What makes you think I can help you?”
“We have to be at Manninpox before 9:15. You know the way because you live right near it.”
“How do you know that?” Rose asked. The day before he had given Pro Bono the phone and address of the studio on St. Mark’s; he had not mentioned the house in the mountains.
“They know everything in my office.”
Rose tried to explain that he wasn’t going back to the Catskills yet because he had unfinished business in the city. But Pro Bono wasn’t one to take no for an answer, and simply pretended not to hear. He had assumed that Rose would go on this trip and that was the end of the discussion.
“He said it like that, ‘you have to leave early, my friend,’” Rose tells me, “that’s it, as if I were one of his employees — and then to top it off calling me friend whenever he wanted me to do something. That’s who Pro Bono was. It really threw me off when he called me friend. Why would he call me his friend if we weren’t friends? One day I told him to fuck off and the next day he was Paris Hiltoning me, making me his new BFF.” Rose decided that was how that kind of person — one who is used to maneuvering others to do his bidding — acts.
Pro Bono told him that he had received a call from Mandra X, and Rose knew right away who that was. María Paz had mentioned Mandra X in the manuscript, and the name had stuck in Rose’s mind. Was it some kind of homage to Malcolm X? A reference to mandrake? She was a terrifying creature for whom María nevertheless seemed to express only gratitude, even affection, one might say.
“Mandra X is not the type to just run her mouth,” Pro Bono said.
“What did she say?”
“She says it is urgent we find María Paz, or she will die.”
“We’re all going to die.”
“This is not a joke, my friend.”
“A matter of life and death, huh? And you want me to believe that you have no idea where María Paz is?” Rose asked.
“I lost track of her a while ago, that’s why I need you.”
“All I know is what I read in that manuscript that I brought to you yesterday.”
“Stop acting all innocent, Rose. María Paz spoke to me about you. Although I have to say the girl is a bit in la-la land. She made it seem to me that you were much younger.”
“And to me that you were much more handsome.”
“Help me be of use to her, Rose. The girl is your friend, and she must have gotten herself into a mess. A new mess, I should say. Don’t turn your back on her now. She trusts you, told me so herself various times.”
“She trusts me? She doesn’t even know me. Unless… wait, I think I get it now. You came here this morning looking for Cleve Rose.”
“That’s who you told me you were, Cleve Rose.”
“I never said I was Cleve Rose.”
“Cleve Rose, María’s writing instructor.”
“No, you don’t understand. Maybe your office doesn’t quite know everything, sir. Check into that when you get back. I told you my name was Rose, but not Cleve Rose.”
“I’m not following.”
“Cleve Rose was killed in an accident, sir. I am Ian Rose, his father.”
“Cleve Rose is dead?”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“And you’re his father?”
“Like I said, I am not Cleve, I am Ian. And I have never met María Paz.”
Pro Bono seemed upset with that bit of news. It flustered him for a moment; he who was always so obnoxiously sure of himself was now a bit befuddled.
“Sorry to have to tell you,” Rose told him, “but my son can no longer help you.”
“Then you will have to do.”
“I can help you even less so, I’m afraid.”
“But you sought me out, asking all those questions about her, and besides you have that manuscript, those papers.”
“Only because the chain of mistaken identities is long. That manuscript was sent to Cleve, not me. But Cleve was already dead, so it came to me.”
Knowing there was no way to get out of the situation, Rose nevertheless tried to impose a few conditions before leaving for Manninpox with Pro Bono. For one, he needed to know what this was all about. For another, no more calling him “my friend.”
“About one, I can’t tell you because I myself don’t know,” Pro Bono said. “About the other, that’s fine, my friend, I’ll stop calling you my friend. I’ll be downstairs.”
On the road in Rose’s car, leaving Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel, Rose asked why they were using his car and not Pro Bono’s.
“I’ve heard that you have a much finer car than this one,” Rose said, “a red sports car that makes you very popular with the ladies.”